‘Virtue signaling’: KIRO hosts debate former Gov. Jay Inslee linking Spokane fires to climate change

Former Washington Governor Jay Inslee made a post on social media Sunday linking the fires raging in Spokane to climate change and urging people to fight for their neighbors.

KIRO host Spike O’Neill said Inslee was spot on in linking the Spokane fires to climate change, while KIRO fill-in host Greg Tomlin warned the fire was started by an arsonist and that crying wolf on climate change is dangerous.

“When you’ve got four years of drought conditions on the ground and various parasites that are thriving in these conditions that have decimated forests, this is just kindling,” Spike said on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “I mean, this was started by an arsonist, but if the conditions that led to it exploding as it has to the community of Spokane can be attributed in part to the conditions that were laid bare to an arsonist, who would take advantage of those conditions, were climate change in nature.”

“Don’t disagree with that, in essence,” Greg responded. “But when a former leader of our state makes this the prime driving issue, you risk prioritizing something that requires a degree of attention but is not essential to the main takeaway that people should be having.”

Spike said he agreed with Greg’s earlier point about crying wolf, warning that if everything is blamed on climate change, no one will listen when it actually is the cause.

“And was he virtue signaling? Absolutely,” Spike added.

Greg on Inslee and climate change tunnel vision: ‘You risk losing any sense of objectivity’

“OK, but think about this in terms of the president of the United States, or personalities like Anthony Fauci, or names that are household names with so many Americans because they’ve had some kind of great political impact,” Greg responded. “My issue with Trump haters is: if you think he is the embodiment of Satan himself, then you are constantly looking for ways to prove your point. In other words, you bend over backwards to try to highlight how every single action this person takes is wrong, and then you risk losing any sense of objectivity in the process.

“So, if you think Anthony Fauci is the embodiment of evil, then everything he says or does is interpreted through some sinister, pernicious lens, and you lose any sense of nuance or conflicting information that might come out in the process,” he continued. “So when Jay Inslee rushes to only talk about climate change in the face of the wildfires, then it causes a person to have to double down and triple down on the narrative that, in this case, is largely false. It’s probably an arsonist who bears the main responsibility, and we should prioritize that as the main issue here, and how to mitigate potential arsonists in the future from causing these things, rather than say, ‘Well, it just all comes back to climate change.'”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3